Praying

I'm going to Indiana this weekend. I'm looking forward to spending a little over a week with these peeps:

They're pretty rad. Why am I going?

Well...my Aunt Suze is having some surgery and is going to be in the hospital, so I volunteered to hang out with my cousins while she's in the hospital. Yes, she's going to be in the hospital for awhile. Like, 10 days awhile.

My Uncle Kelly is going to be stretched pretty thin and I'm there to be another person to support them and the kids.

Tomorrow is her surgery. She's got some stuff going on in her pancreas, so the doctors are going to remove it. The stuff, not her whole pancreas.

Vas ist das pancreas?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

The pancreas is a gland-organ nestled in by the stomach. It produces insulin and hormones (making it an endocrine gland) and also produces some digestive enzymes (making it an exocrine gland). All in all it's a pretty big deal.

And the procedure occurring tomorrow is the Whipple which the Mayo Clinic describes as this: The surgery involves removing the "head" of the pancreas — the wide part of the pancreas next to the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. To do that, surgeons must remove the duodenum, the gallbladder, the end of the common bile duct and sometimes part of the stomach. The intestine, bile duct and remaining part of the pancreas are then reconnected.

So, what we're talking about are some major changes in digestion and waiting until all the bowels are functioning before Aunt Suze can go home. That's right, they're monitoring her poop-shooter. Wouldn't you love that job? (I'd like to take a moment to say how important this job is, so thank you poop-shooter monitoring people of this world!)

In the meantime, our family is asking for your prayers if you're the praying sort, your thoughts if you're the thinking sort, your hope if you're the hopeful sort, your love if you're the loving sort, your peace if you're the peaceful sort and your positivity if you're the positive sort. We're going to need all of those things to get through this, especially Suze, Kelly, Ben, Katie and Mackenzie.

I believe that God will handle this as only God can. The plan is not ours to know, but we can choose to believe and ask God to do what is best: to give the surgeons steady hands, to give the nurses restful preparation, to give the anesthesiologist an alert mind, to give us patience throughout the process and to give her body the resources to heal.

I love these people, God, please take good care of them.

I'll keep you posted, but if you want to know more about their family's journey it's here.

Love, peace, hope, positivity, thoughts and prayers to you and yours.

xo,
amy